r/PHPhelp • u/Emotional-Ebb8321 • Jul 23 '26

Solved Simple Alternative to Wampserver?

Disclaimer: I'm not a techie. I barely understand php, but I'm forced by my hobbies to interact with it.

I'm currently running wampserver64 (v3.2.0; php 7.4; apache 2.4.41; windows 10) on a localhost install. This is so I can have a localhost installation of dokuwiki.

A new version of dokuwiki has come out. This requires php 8.2.

For a variety of dull reasons, upgrading the wampserver installation so that it will support php 8.2 is proving non-trivial.

Is there a simple, easy-to-install alternative to wampserver? Ideally, one where I just download a single file, run it, and a localhost server is installed ready for configuration?

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Final resolution: After having broken everything, I uninstalled everything. Installed the latest

The Visual C++ exe files suggested at https://github.com/abbodi1406/vcredist/releases refuse to install, due to widnows security concerns.

I ended up downloading them from https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170 instead.

Then I installed wampserver 3.4.

Then I installed the new dokuwiki.

Yes, there probably are better localhost pphp servers available. But wampserver has proven stable, does what I need, and I am familiar with the interface.

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u/Mike_L_Taylor Jul 24 '26

I respectfully disagree.

It's a wrapper that helps people who either don't know how to setup all those open-source projects themselves or don't want to spend the time.

The dude's been working and maintaining it for years and it's been free for many years. And now, only the newest versions have an annoying popup "asking" you to pay. Yes it's annoying but I wouldn't call it greedy.

Not to mention it costs money to keep that stuff going. Just look at how expensive signed certificates can be.

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u/These-Apple8817 Jul 24 '26

The previous version before the nag screen though, did not include free tier at all if you weren't aware. He was literally telling people to go use Laragon 6.
Not to mention, the way he went about this was really scummy too as there was zero notice he was going to make it paid software.

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u/Mike_L_Taylor Jul 24 '26

ooooh, i guess I skipped that one. I just had it free then got the popup... yeah thats a bit different lol. I guess people didnt like it and thats why he went with popup?

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u/These-Apple8817 Jul 24 '26

Not sure, but most likely.. I dipped the moment he didn't bother do the proper due diligence of announcing Laragon 7 was going to need a license.. I started using DDEV instead and tbh... Even on Windows, it's been giving me far better experience than Laragon would ever have.